Performance of Swedish pupils deteriorating – new PISA report being tension in the country’s education system

Tuesday, 03 December 2013
Swedish pupils' performances in key areas of academic development
continues to get worse when compared to other those from other
countries, the international school testing system, Pisa report on Tuesday.

The performance is reported to apply to both the weak as strong pupils.

Described as a dark report describing the situation in Swedish schools,
Swedish students now performing below the average of all OECD countries
in mathematics as well as science and reading.
This is not so when the first surveys were made in 2000, when Sweden
was above average in all three areas. But in 2006 Sweden has slipped to
an average level in science and mathematics, and by 2009 it was
expected that the same fate for reading comprehension will follow. Even
then Sweden fell below average in the OECD in science.

Sweden is the country that lost the most in mathematics and science since the first survey, and the second most in reading.
Even without comparing ourselves to other countries, the trend is
clear. Swedish 15-year-olds simply sample everything worse today than
in the past, both compared with the last survey in 2009 and in the
longer term.

It is statistically significant that comprehension deteriorated since
2000 and that Swedish students become worse in number occupation in
late 2003. With this year's test is also the decline of science which
is statistically significant.

At the same time this year, the PISA testing show that the proportion
of strong students decreased while the proportion of poor student has
increased. In mathematics, it was as many as 27 per cent, more than a
quarter of Swedish 15-year-old, who did not pass the basic level. In
2003 it was over 17 percent. Meanwhile, the percentage of those who
pass the highest level where halved, from nearly 16 percent in 2003 to
8 percent now.

The decline is greatest among low achievers and the National Agency for
education believes that the problem of equivalence exists. In a similar
school, all pupils regardless of their social background and economic
conditions have the ability to attain their education requirements.

The first time the international survey Pisa was made, in 2000, this
was an area in which Sweden was on top compared to many other
comparative countries.